COMMERCIAL SOLAR NEWS

Australians across the country have been hit hard by skyrocketing energy prices over the last year. In some cases, businesses have seen their electricity bills triple. A recent downturn since May has meant modest relief, but analysts predict this downturn will be short lived as we head into Spring.

Since the downturn in May, we are now seeing a flat trend in NSW, while energy prices are spiking upwards in VIC and QLD.

Energy Action points out two factors that are expected to impact energy prices in the coming months:

In October, the federal government will decide whether or not to place restrictions on east coast gas exports to allow increased supplies to the domestic market. Whether or not they do this will depend on how the gas exporters act towards increasing domestic supplies voluntarily. This factor could force prices down.

AEMO continues to forecast significant shortages in generation for Victoria and South Australia over the coming summer should it be a hot one. If this were to happen there would be mandatory load shedding in those states. Even without load shedding prices are expected to be very high for that season. This factor will continue to support the price.

With this predicted upward trend, those interested in commercial solar power are now in an optimal, but quickly-closing window to begin their project. This month, we will see the market price for STC’s decrease by almost 22% from $38/STC to $29/STC. Additionally, for any system installed/commissioned after December 31st 2017, customers will receive approximately 7% lower rebate (up to $5,127 reduction) compared to installing the system before December 31st 2017. This means all systems that don’t proceed to lock in the current STC pricing and get installed before 2018 will significantly increase in price.

Businesses like Canon in NSW, Elsum Engineering in VIC, schools like La Trobe University, and Councils like Wollongong and Campbelltown are all jumping on this timing and have all recently contracted with Todae Solar to provide commercial solar solutions to curb these continually rising prices.